i am certainly and in every way comfortable with everything i have reported in this book. would you release any of those recordings since your credibility is being questioned? my credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than perhaps anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point. michael wolff there, of course, author of the new book fire and fury defending his account of the white house as the president ramps up his attacks on the book. let s bring in msnbc analyst jonathan alter and kristen hagelin, we ll go ladies first. what do you make of michael wolff s claim he has recordings and notes to back up what he wrote. well, i mean, he s worked as a journalist and an author for years, so it makes complete sense. and i would believe him. as i think we all should t. question, of course, when you traens fer recordings to a book, right, that you are trying to
yesterday. here s that. when i had jeff sessions on the witness stand a few weeks back, he wouldn t answer a fundamental question like did the fbi pay christopher steele the author? he says there is an ongoing investigation, then we re going to leak to the fork times four unnamed sources, forget about the dossier, it s really pap tap lus in a par if great britain shooting his mouth off. that was the catalyst for the russian investigation him c mon. is he blaming jeff sessions? jim jordan does not know who the new york time s reporters sources were. this is another attempt to distract from what really is the heart of the investigation and the is that correct that george pap tadopoulos blabed last marc. he was the one combined with the dnc hack that triggered the investigation. what that s done is really under mined the central talking point that this dossier, which is essentially an unverified collection of memos.
he is calling eight hoax on the american public. if that s the case, natasha, why are the president and gop immersed in this campaign to discredit investigators? that s a good question. we seen republicans who previously called mueller a really stand-up guy saying his reputation is impeccable, turning on him as mueller gets closer to trump s inner circle and closer to potentially charging the president with obstruction of justice. this is clearly an attempt to undermine the investigation and throw dirt on any potential outcome that mueller may reach. and it s really getting really obvious that it s become a coordinated campaign. have you now three congressmen calling for attorney general jeff session to resign, which would, in effect, clear the way for the president to appoint a new attorney general who is not recuse from the russian investigation, who could then fire robert mueller if that is what trump told him to do. so i want to pick up on that of those three, let s play what c
really stayed beyond my invitation. i was always escorted out at the end of the day. look, you have been ocouch in the west wing lobby. yes, i have. you spent time in the obama white house, give me your experience as we hear from wolff. i was on that couch. i was in and out of that white house a lot and he did a lot of interviews and also had a lot of casual conversations in that area right be i the couch. which is a kind of a reception area that a lot of west wing aids go through when they re going from one part of the white house to another. so it s a good kind of grand central station to get information. and also can i ask you something, as you are sitting there on that couch and people are coming and going, you chat and ask a question, do they know who you are? do they know you are working on a book? do you have to always say, hey, this is on the record, off the record? how does that go? no, you are chatting with
called for. if i can take one second to comment on the previous question about steve bannon as well, i don t think steve views himself as having broken with the president. i think what s clear is he doesn t like some of the people around the president, that includes his family members. the fact that he felt open to talk about that is what is unusual. i think it s true that he, he still sees himself as a part of the trump army, even though what he has said in this book and this coming out this week has been very damaging to him. jeff, let me ask you about that. you may have heard my interview with chris whipple. chris said he believes bannon and trump will be talking and that bannon will be giving his opinions and advising president trump in the not too distant future. that may be possible. but do you think that bannon stepped over a certain line by criticizing the president s family? reporter: i think he did. i think the president sees it that way. i think that shows in the fact